NT 4.0: DOSBox 0.74-3 hangs on close

[ppgrainbow]

I have been trying out the latest version of DOSBox 0.74-3 running on Windows NT 4.0 SP6 under VMware Workstation Player 16.1.2.

When starting DOSBox, I get the following output in the Command Prompt window:

SDL_Init: Starting up with SDL windib video driver.
          Try to update your video card and directx drivers!
CONFIG: Generating default configuration
Writing it to C:\WINNT\Profiles\ppgrainbow\Application Data\DOSBox\dosbox-0-74-3.conf
CONFIG: Writing it to C:\WINNT\Profiles\ppgrainbow\Application Data\DOSBox\dosbox-0-74-3.conf
MIXER: Got different values from SDL: freq 44100, blocksize 512
MIDI:Opened device:Win32

However, when I try to close the DOSBox window, DOSBox hangs hard and robs 100% of the CPU usage!

Using Process Explorer, I tried to terminate DOSBox.exe, but instead I get an error message:

Error terminating process: Access is denied.

Here's a screenshot of this issue: https://imgur.com/a/74tilnb

The only way to resolve the issue was to perform a hard reset of the guest OS.

Since Windows NT 4.0 has limited DirectX support (up to version 3 officially), how can I get around this issue?

Edited July 15, 2021 by ppgrainbow